Shanghai Nobody_A Novel

by Vann Chow

  His western name was Jessie, I decided, like the younger brother of Nick from the Back Street Boys. He was to grow up tough, cool and with lots of female friends, not the malnourished quiet boy who did not know what fun was and was currently sitting dully next to me doing his homework as if his life depended on it. (Although being literate and educated could take him out of this dump that his lavish mother was putting them both through.)

  One night I brought the old flat screen TV I had in my room for Jessie. Paula almost killed me. “Did you suffer from brain damage?” She yelled so loud I suspect the neighbors would call the police. “How dare you bring this to my house? My boy is not going to grow up like you, wasting away his life watching silly cartoons on television.”

  I retorted that he was getting out of touch with the world without a television, since there was also no radio nor computers at their home. Obviously, Paula had a smartphone but that was for herself and not her son. It was completely justifiable to give Jessie a means to learn about the outside world.

  “You're brain dead.” Her abuse got worse. She accepted the gift nonetheless after I finally managed to install the flat screen satellite TV, an old model already from five years ago, in her living room. “How the hell are you getting the signals? I didn't pay, and mind you, I won't pay for any of it!”

  After explaining for less than 30 seconds that this was a satellite TV and that we could get signals even from foreign channels and that little Jessie could learn English from CNN, Paula asked me to shut up and the three of us watched four hours of television till midnight without speaking another to each other. I did not remind Paula that Jessie had not let me check his homework yet.

  Chapter 16: CNN

  The teacher from my English class at the vocational college gave me the second compliment of the lesson. A guy from the back row hissed.

  “What are you studying so hard for?” He shut my book so suddenly I gave a start. Leaning on the teacher's desk with his arms crossed, he questioned my motive. “I am going to get the highest score in this class, not you, old man.”

  His comment seemed nonsensical, because our performances in class should have nothing to do with each other's grades. I wish to confirm it but this was not the case in a Chinese classroom, even when you were learning English. There were quotas for the best, and when there was a limit of resources, people started fighting for it with zeal. Some ancient scholars might have figured it out that limiting the number of people who can obtain the best grade was the best way to motivate students to learn, and so it went that whether you were in a class preparing for national university entrance exams or a pop quiz at the evening vocational college, students compete with each other as if being ranked top of class was the only point of learning.

  “It was all talent,” I retorted. Just then the teacher entered the room again. Break was over.

  For the last ten months I had been attending English class, as I mentioned, at the vocational college. I had begged my Human Resource lady San San to come up with ways how I could take the class in company expense. The things I learnt from spending way too much time with women who wanted to benefit from me turned out to be extremely instructional. I flirted ostentatiously and I did not save on compliments. After a dinner at a restaurant which was offering buy-two-get-one menus with Rib eye steaks because there was a refrigeration failure the evening before, I managed to get San San to talk to my boss about my mandatory improvement training for employee who had served the company more than five years and held senior position.

  She laughed when she heard that I wanted to take English lessons. “How on earth are you going to justify it? You don't need to speak English at work.”

  “We have a high chance of being bought by Alibaba, don't we? Their top guys are all Chinese Americans, or American Chinese. Whatever. Someone in the development team who can speak fluent English could come in handy.”

  San San must have a moment of weakness imaging me engaged in a conversations over the details of our products with people from Alibaba Group who was rumored to buy us. Being bought by Alibaba was like a dream come true for a lot of people working for Chinese tech companies because then we would have a near-American corporate structure, less hierarchy, less micro-management, more freedom, less hours, more holidays and maybe some soaring stocks as year-end bonus. I gave her the practiced wink as we parted that evening. It apparently did its magic because I got my class approved the next day.

  Chapter 17: Grandson

  I could have taken a holiday to the U.S.A. during Chinese New Year, but I did not do it for the sake of Jessie.

  There were a lot of celebrational banquets and events in the city. Paula said she hope she could split in two so she could manage to make all the money that the rich was handing out during the festive season. I asked her why not split into four or eight, if that was just her wishful thinking anyway. Aim higher, I told her. Jessie chuckled next to me.

  Because Paula was so busy escorting men from one party to another, it was decided that Jessie would be placed in my custody without my consent. One day I came back from work and my mom was busying spoon-feeding rice congee to Jessie as he was watching a poor copycat version of Chinese Doraemon the robot cat from future. His lap and the table top was covered in dots of thick, spilled rice paste.

  My dad came rushing out of the kitchen, his apron still on and he smelt like steamed black bean fish, my favorite dish.

  “Where did you find this woman?” My dad sounded furious. He was trying to make sure I get the impression that he was furious as well while at the same time trying to keep his voice down lest Jessie could hear him talk, although from what I could see, the child was absolutely engrossed by Doraemon. “How did you get into such a mess?”

  I liked how my dad and I were like twins sometimes because his questions were the exact questions I had in my mind. Of course I had some inkling what happened. Patching up what my mom told me, and what my dad told me, what I could gather was that Paula needed to rush, as always and luckily she still thought of putting Jessie into someone's care first instead of leaving him alone at home without adult company and food, and I came up top of her list. Unfortunately my cell phone ran out of battery since I was playing Clash of Titans and that game drained battery like no other. I missed all four of her calls and she took it to her hands to deliver Jessie to the playground in my neighborhood and gave her son an old iPod which contained a photo of me and herself. Very responsible.

  A local city guard caught Jessie playing on his own still when it was turning dark and talked to him. Jessie told him about how his mother had to go to work and he was supposed to stay with his mother's boyfriend's tonight. He said he was not playing there but keeping an eye on the passersby for me. The city guard took him to my parents without making a fuss.

  I checked my cell phone and I had more than just four missed call, but three more from my parents and one voice mail. I erased it before it would play to save myself the double yelling, recorded and in face to face.

  “She's just a friend.” My mom frowned as if she thought I was lying. Jessie had told her I go to her house regularly right before she put him to sleep. He was now away from earshot and we could discuss the matter properly.

  “What kind of idiot are you to take care of someone's child when are not involved with her? Besides bringing up a kid takes money.”

  “I am not raising her kid for her. We are just acquaintance. I took a liking to the little guy so we hang out from time to time. I teach him English and Maths. That's it.”

  “That's someone's kid, my son. Don't invest real emotion in it. This Paula, she could not have been a good woman from how she left her son alone in the playground. He could have been kidnapped! Stay away from such a woman,” my mom pleaded, as if I just told her I wanted to marry Paula, something that I would never do.

  “I am trying to, but you see, the kid...”

  “He's not a bad boy, just didn't get the right attention,” my dad said.

 
“You better send him back tomorrow first thing in the morning,” my mom said. “You're already not earning much, how could you take care of someone's family?”

  “What someone's family?” I said.

  “You have to find a girlfriend still. What if other girls saw you with this woman and her kid? No one would come near you!”

  “It's just a friend's kid. It's not a plague. Besides, when Chinese New Year finishes, his mom would pick him up again as if nothing happened!”

  “Nothing happened! Son, we have to now carry him around with us throughout the holidays! All of your relatives will see him and ask me, who is this kid? Is that your grandson? When did your son get married? Why didn't you tell us? And worse still, they might find out he is not one of us, that you have been so dumb to date a woman with a child.”

  I grunted. Indeed, I did not think of the consequences as thoroughly as my mother. On the other hand, I could not care less about what other people say about me. She did though, very much, I could tell.

  “Just think for yourself. You're not young. You're thirty-three already. It's time to find a girl and settle down. Don't waste your time on woman who looks pretty on the outside and has no virtue on the inside. What kind of impression people are going to have on you when they heard this nonsense? Your reputation will be ruined.”

  “My reputation was already ruined when we canceled the wedding...” I had to say.

  My dad sighed, which stopped her short and said, “If you were married we might have a grandson already to continue our bloodline. I wouldn't have to look at someone else's son and felt envious.”

  “Dad. Mom! Stop! This year's New Year will be difficult for you, but don't worry, next year you will have a lovely daughter-in-law who comes from a good family and she will bear the grandson you have always wanted to bring face and luck to the family, okay? That settles it I suppose. I'm going to bed.”

  I went into my room to find Jessie fast asleep on the far end of my double bed, blanket on the floor. I locked the doors and said Goodnight to myself.

  Chapter 18: Pretension

  Jessie got along with the sons and daughters of my cousins, who were about my age but already married and had kids of their own. My parents decided to take turn to own their relationships with Jessie. They have decided that Jessie was the son of Paula who was their distant relative's daughter from their hometowns and that I should not be involved in any part in the story of why we were bringing along an extra kid this year to family gatherings. Since my mother and my father's hometowns were seventy kilometers apart and most people from these towns didn't mix with each other, the chance that anyone shall find out the trick we pulled here was minimal. Jessie and I went along with it. My mom allowed us extra turnip cakes at our relative's houses for keeping our mouths shut lest we exposed her and make her lose face.

  Unlike the previous year, no one asked me when am I going to get married, since for years I had been telling them the plans of me and my ex-girlfriend's wedding plan, which was now nothing but sad memory. Instead they resorted to the question they asked ten years ago, do I have a girlfriend because they were ready to set me up with some distant relations again who was at marriage age.

  While I made it sound like it was really hard to meet girls, it was only theoretically true. Theoretically there were a lot more men than women, actually about 50 millions more men than women at marriage age. You would expect that due to low supply and high demand, all women at marriage age would be taken. That was certainly not the case. Practically, not all women were equally desirable and some were more desirable than others, causing the cost of acquisition, all expenses involved in giving her a good time such as dinner, flowers, gifts for her and her parents, dowry and so on, to shoot up in marital market, while for those that were less desirable to have a reasonably affordable cost of acquisition. I did not mean to diminish women by applying economic theories to their flow in and out of relationships, however in a society that men were expected to shoulder most cost, if not all involved, it was hard not to be a bit more frugal and calculating, since money in my command was never infinite. There was limited resource that could be attributed to this activity of wife-finding and I had to optimize my gain. It was imperative to be economically minded.

  So, there were still girls who would love to meet such a loser like me and perhaps even marry me, despite my average looks. average career prospect, and below average savings, especially those that aspired to get out of the small villages and move in with me to Shanghai. The rent was so high it was still a dream to most people and a dream closed to the hearts especially for those who lived in village the closes to it who was constantly reminded of the beautiful, glamorous city life that was so close but felt so far away.

  Throughout the week of commencing from the New Year's day, I was introduced to ladies of all sizes and shapes. None were so pretty and attractive like the women I met online, since they were all village girls who either did not bother with their looks because they had hard jobs in the village where jobs were scarce, or they over did it.

  Hundreds of thousands of people flooded Shanghai every year from outside the city, hoping to get in on the action of the high life. They had a pretentious taste, wear expensive clothes feigning good taste, kissing up and looking down. You could tell from five meters away they stank of ignorance.

  I told Kelvin about my observations when we chatted over the phone since we would miss our weekly coffee during the holidays. He said that I was too harsh. In his opinion, the daughters of new rich he had to spend time with during family visits in Shanghai were a lot more obnoxious.

  New rich, of course. Kelvin's parents were amongst them, although they did not pick up any bad habit from his social class, and so Kelvin had a good upbringing. He still hangout with his old pal from back in the days as if there was not a huge class division between us. Every time his chauffeur offered to drive me back to my office after our weekly coffee, he still insisted that I pay for it as if it was a taxi ride. Certainly the chauffeur was obliged to turn down my money since he knew that was just a joke between two kids.

  He was right, in fact there was no girl in or around Shanghai who didn't have a pretentious taste, who smeared herself with branded makeup day in day out as if they were Korean movie stars, who did not feign class in even the simplest of all situation and wanted to distinguish herself from the crowd through their abilities to acquire pricey items, or men, and was obsessed with showing their so-called luxurious lives online. It was disgusting, we concluded.

  What was more disgusting, however, was that we, men, were the exacerbaters of the phenomenon, footing the bills to boost their confidence in hope of getting their favors.

  The daughter of my cousin gave Jessie a kiss. He was so shocked he felt face down on the couch seat. Everyone laughed and it was so noisy we decided to cut our conversation short.

  Chapter 19: The Perfect Girl

  Then one day, I met the perfect girl. She was the replacement English teacher for the professor at the vocational college who got injured in a hiking accident.

  We had been asked by the headmaster to call her Miss Li. She was in her 3rd year in Harvard's School of Arts and Science, major in American Studies, with focus on immigration cultures within the Americas. All these information I found on her teacher's page that same evening in my moments of insomnia.

  Not only did she look lovely, she was also elegant, graceful and well-educated. She was the perfect model specimen for girlfriend. I had followed her a few times home after class. No, I was not stalking her per my definition, since she happened to walk in front of me every time and lived near the thirteen tram stops along my usual route home from the vocational school. Of course she did not take the tram with me, otherwise we would have had the opportunity to speak outside of class already. For such a lovely girl, it was almost expectant that there would be a lucky man in an expensive European car waiting to drive her home every school evening so she could kept this sinful, degenerate part of the ci
ty from polluting her soul. Because of the frequent traffic light along the route, my tram could catch up to the white BMW every so often. These were the opportunity where I would peer into the car and imagine how it would feel like it if was me who was sitting next to her in the comfort of my own car, driving my beloved home.

  One evening after class, Miss Li asked me to stay behind.

  My heart pounding, I sat motionless on my seat unable to move. She loomed over me eventually and I felt my mouth watering. I swallowed hard and shifted on my seat.

  “Do you know Marvey Green?”

  On the sound of Marvey's name, my heart skipped a beat. How did she know her?

  Miss Zhao explained that she knew Marvey through some Chinese student society events.

  “So it was you! In her photos. She posted a lot of photos from her exchange semesters in Shanghai some months ago. And when I saw you in this class the first time, I thought you looked very familiar but I didn't know where I knew you from. The other day my brother came to pick me up from school and he said he saw a student from my class who looked like the guy in Marvey's photographs. Of course that was you, now I know! Such a small world!”

  I smiled weakly, reminiscing the fun times when Marvey was here, and wondering on the back of my mind why I could not see any of the photographs she posted on Facebook. There was no way I would miss them because I had all the notifications turned on for everything from Marvey. It appeared that she was hiding our own photographs from my eyes.

  “Would you like to have midnight snacks with my brother and I?” Miss Zhao asked. I obliged.

  Shirley, she told me I could call her that, and her brother Simon. They both studied in Harvard. It was a relief to hear that the man who picked her up every school evening was her younger brother, not lover, who was also taking their spring break back home in China. However, I found myself sulking throughout the midnight snacks, despite the excellent street snacks and wonderful company.